The Law of Entropy

Discussion in 'Psychology' started by andrasnm, Feb 28, 2006.

  1. Entropy, the second law of thermodynamics, allows that the amount of energy in a closed system will decline over time. This also applies to human social systems. Entropy causes everything to go from what may have been a tight-knit beginning to utter chaos in the end. We have seen this happen with the birth, advance and death of civilizations. We see it in polar shifts which cause the breakup of continents in which the tectonic plates split apart and join with others to form new continents. We observe it in politics, religion and family life. In fact, the earth and it’s humanity also operates as a closed system.

    To combat entropy, organizations try to re-invent themselves, develop new goals, revitalize the membership, even crash and burn so, like the Phoenix, they can start over anew from their own ashes. People do the same thing.

    Every social structure, every person, anything with energy, ultimately decays. If this is so, what is the purpose of evolution? Are we as a people doomed to the hard life of the Phoenix? The fact is, every day we demonstrate that we really do not know the purpose of evolution. If we knew the purpose of evolution we would know that living life in a mode of "business as usual" is impossible; that evolutionary change is the order of the day, yea the minute and the second. But even change as we know it in life, i.e., physical regeneration, within a closed system, is doomed to ultimate entropy. Therefore, in order to understand the purpose of evolution we have to begin by understanding that there is no past and no present, just the future.

    If we turn our thoughts to the future, then we should begin to understand that there is more to life than physical evolution. In physical evolution, the one who dies with the most toys wins. Thus all physical life is concentrated on the accumulation of toys, toys being whatever cannot be taken with us when we die. The attention humanity gives to making of life a toy store is a dynamic formula for the constant presence of entropy--everywhere and in everything.
     
  2. A big leap from thermo to hermo. Best leave your anthropomorphic analogies at the door when you come here. Too many physicisits and mathematicians present. That gentle reminder was in lieu of saying "B.S."!

    edited
     
  3. So, Einstein what part of the post is untrue or otherwise false? If you make a criticism at least be a little more precise and to the point.
    and it is physicist
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy

     
  4. Thermodynamics is about heat transfer. Period. It is not cosmology or psychology. You ever take a course in it? Guess not. It is a common failing here to take an incomplete understanding of physical phenomena or of mathematics and apply them to human nature and trading. And I am not Einstein, just a fish.
     
  5. I do not need to take a course in advanced physics to know that we are made of atoms and use/generate energy so why is it so far fetched to use the law of entropy to humans? Say one human. Does the law of Thermodynamics not apply to a person?
    If it applies to one it applies to a group as well.
     
  6. Aren't you being a tad harsh? For example, I think there are numerous parallels that can be drawn between trading and, say, proctology. Particularly in the area of trading seminars and "how-to" trading books.
     
  7. This is totally about thermodynamics, quantum ED, and every other physical law.

    Why?

    Examine what the Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity says. It's actually very, very simple. The problem is that most people are so programed to what common sense is, that they are unwilling to accept the consequences of relativity.

    All that it says is, more or less, the laws of the universe are identical for observers in all reference frames. That's it.

    The part people have a hard time with is accepting that all means all. The neural paths in our brains follow the same laws as electromagnetic radiation, sub-atomic symetry laws, etc etc. Thermodynamics is an outgrowth of quantum dynamics.

    All laws apply to everything. This is accepted and experimentally verified scientific practice.
     
  8. Really? Well then, when you identify the algorithm that defines, explains and predicts human behavior with the numerical accuracy of a mathematical equation please be sure to let me know.
     
  9. fhl

    fhl

    S=T*K

    That's it. That's the algorithm.

    Where S= stock ripping or tanking

    T= line in trade idea window

    K=bunch of idiots hitting keyboard
     
  10. Cute, but no cigar. :D

    If the world of human behavior were as simple as andrasnm and bundlemaker would have us believe, then all people would react in the same way to the same stimulus. Who, then, would take the other side of our trades? The reality is that people's perceptions are not identical and neither are their reactions. Those two variables make for a lot more uncertainty than the physical or pure sciences can tolerate.
     
    #10     Feb 28, 2006